Winger extraordinaire Tony Blankley is leaving his "journalistic" gig as editorial page editor of The Washington Times to become a paid promoter of client interests as an employee of the PR firm Edelman International.
Now that he will be dropping all pretenses of objectivity, as a paid advocate for clients, what is going to happen to his other "journalist" gigs, such as cohosting NPR's "Left, Right and Center" and participating in "The McLaughlin Group"?
Nothing.
Fishbowl DC reports that Blankley has accepted the position with Edelman and will be leaving his Moonie-funded perch at the Times.
OK, fine. There's nothing wrong with being a paid advocate representing clients' interests. That's what I do for a living. The point is, you can only be one thing or the other. Once you take a job in PR, you cease being a journalist. Period.
So why is it that the Moonie Times can clearly see the necessity for Blankley to step down, but NPR doesn't get it?
Now, no one thinks for a minute that Tony Blankley was ever an objective journalist. Programs like "McLaughlin" and "L,R&C" are firehoses of opinion and spin, not straight reporting.
But again, that's not the point. Even highly opinionated pundits -- at least in theory -- are supposed to come by those opinions through research and deliberation, not by who comes through the door waving a check.
I'm lucky enough to work for a PR firm run by a person whose values are close to my own, and who chooses his clients carefully based on his ability to represent them wholeheartedly and without reservation. It's the best of all possible worlds in this field. But at the end of the day, we are paid agents for a particular point of view. And that is incompatible with journalism, including opinion journalism.
Blankley should be disqualified from punditry. Period. NPR and PBS, and their member stations, should act accordingly.